In the world of e-commerce, customers can purchase merchandise and services online from electronic catalogs, typically through websites on the Internet. Such purchases typically involve the consumer browsing or searching through an electronic catalog and selecting merchandise or services the consumer wishes to purchase.
However, the applicants have recognized that there may be promotional and other advantages to be gained if merchandise and/or services could be grouped together. From the consumer's perspective, group purchases may involve price discounts or other incentives for volume purchases as well as making purchasing decisions easier. From the merchant's perspective, grouping merchandise together may result in increased sales volumes, and may assist in promoting new or low volume products with more popular, high volume products.
There is accordingly a need for a system and methodology for enabling the e-commerce purchasing of grouped merchandise and/or services (hereinafter referred to as “packages”).